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Three years ago when I visited Cape Ann, I returned obsessed with ideas about edifices and erections . . . no no not what you think. For a spell I toyed with efforts to grow ideas of erecting lights in the sixth boro like this . . . until I concluded–at the time–that our fair harbor already has its light. . . yet I’m ambivalent about the finality of that answer.
I like Gloucester’s unique reinvention of the tradition of a tree with lights, a genuine community effort, building the tree while building a community.
Evidence of community building showed elsewhere too . . like here.
The inscription barely visible in the foreground says “Step into my shoes and feel inspired,” and I did and was. Fitz Hugh (or Henry) Lane‘s work is truly a memorial framing past.
Gloucester’s Harbor Walk has to be one of the most amazing ways to marry state-of-the-art technology with a means to memorialize the past. Here’s an article on its genesis and funding, and the home website for these 42 “stations of the port.”
A stone’s throw from the water . . . a shrine to Gordon W. Thomas, author of one of my all-time favorite books.
Here’s another memorial at the Portuguese church.
This marker in Bearskin Neck (Rockport) features some great obsolete words, seafencibles and “townsmen … in stockings.”
Actually, I was there in part to build a personal memorial, although I hadn’t known that when I first arrived. Standing in Fitz’s shoes was inspirational.
And so . .. south of Straitsmouth Light, here memorialized in a postcard . . . until some gust might topple it, a cairn stands.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
I lived near Cape Ann for most of the last 15 years of the 20th century, and have to get back now and then.
Few places in the US are as connected to the water as Cape Ann, whether it be churches in Gloucester,
small business icons in Rockport,
or National Endowments for the Arts winners for the oldest profession (really) in Essex.
I was in Gloucester too short this time to meet up with recent friends there, but old friends welcomed me back, like Mount Agamenticus here looming behind the Isles of Shoals and the Boon Island Light, visible but not pictured . . .
as did Thatcher Island.
All fotos this weekend by Will Van Dorp.
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